Monday, 4 February 2013

The consensus was that after his crafted and long-awaited speech on Europe, David Cameron had "done enough", to quote Nigel Farage, to stop Tory defections to UKIP.

Now, having seriously split his party asunder by championing the idea of same-sex marriage, the Prime Minister rubs salt into the wounds of social traditionalists by refusing to countenance introducing marriage tax breaks in the next budget.

The reason, apparently, is that he did not want to be seen to kowtow to those likely to rebel on the same-sex marriage bill being voted on in the Commons this week. However, such an explanation really does not wash when you consider that Cameron, for all his myriad faults, has always championed the need for marriage tax breaks. There was therefore no need for him to worry about appearing weak on an issue with which he is supposedly in agreement with the bulk of his party.

There are only two possible explanations for his behaviour. Firstly, that he is in essence a very weak and impressionable man, easily talked out of positions by his fashionable Metropolitan friends such as Osbourne and Clegg whose approval he desperately craves. No more in reality than a posh version of John Major, his essential vapidity is hidden by his Eton polish and arrogance.

The second is that his social snobbery is so pathological that it actually cripples his ability to govern effectively: he simply can not bear to be associated with any issue that animates those he considers his social inferiors, and instead emphasises his aloofness by humiliating his party at every opportunity.

These explanations, are, of course, mutually reinforcing rather than mutually contradictory.

The third explanation is that Cameron really is a sleeper placed in the Conservative party by others wanting it's destruction - "Agent Cameron", as the journalist Patrick O'Flynn sarcastically dubbed him.

Whatever the reason, by telegraphing that he much prefers the approval of the likes of Nick Clegg to respecting Conservative sensitivities, Cameron has once again managed to completely unnecessarily enrage and alienate his own party activists and MP's. As a consequence, a further dwindling of the Tory activist base is probably now inevitable. Moreover, many Conservative MP's, who will have noticed nervously from the opinion polls that the UKIP fox remains stubbornly unshot, will once again be considering the merits of outright revolt or even defection.